Talking crow says‘Hello’ to squirrel

A wild crow that was hand-raised by an Ontario veterinarian as an infant was caught on camera saying “Hello” to a squirrel in the woman’s back yard.

Dr. Kristy Hiltz, a veterinarian at Sherbrooke Heights Animal Hospital in Peterborough, said her husband placed a GoPro camera near a feeder in their back yard and it recently captured the moment a crow landed on a branch near a feasting squirrel and said “Hello” twice.

Hiltz said the crow was one of five she and her family cared for in the summer of 2011 after their nest fell out of a tree and their mother could not be found. The four crows that survived eventually joined a nearby group of crows, but Hiltz and her family still occasionally spot the crows and hear their voices. She said the family had tried to teach the crows to say “Fred,” but they instead ended up picking up the word “hello.” upi